Monthly Archives: December 2016

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Inspired by the classic brothy soup from the deli counter, this hearty vegetarian soup is pure comfort and warmth. It brings together a blend of meaty mushrooms, vegetables, and tender pieces of pearled barley for a warm-me-up soup you can make in 30 minutes.

If you haven’t yet noticed, we’re big travel-lovers here at Kitchn. And when you think about it, it makes sense because tasting and experiencing new and delicious foods is one of the main reasons why people want to travel in the first place.

We’re so into traveling that we even launched a brand-new travel section this month. We’re really looking forward to sharing our adventures with you in 2017 — but until then, this is what inspired us most in 2016.

A lucky New Year’s Day brunch calls for something simple and bubbly to begin the year on a festive note, and I have just the thing. It’s hardly groundbreaking — we all know and love the classic brunch mimosa — but grapefruit puts such a refreshing edge on this old favorite. And with just two ingredients, it can’t be beat for simplicity.

A perfectly cooked beef tenderloin is truly a sight to behold. The delectable cut often made special-occasion appearances when I was growing up, but Easter Sunday and its rosy-hued tenderloin tea sandwiches was always a holiday favorite.

New Year’s Day is good for a few things: recovering from staying up too late the night before, eating your hoppin’ john and greens, and hanging around the house with friends and family, starting the new year with the people who love you most.

But you can only sit around sharing resolutions for so long. What’s next? Game time! Here are a few suggestions to get you started.

Potatoes are dreamy — there’s no way around it. From mashed potatoes to french fries to chips, these little spuds know how to make our palates very happy.

One of my favorite potato chip flavors is salt and vinegar. The saltiness against the acidity of the vinegar makes them wildly addicting and kicks back so much flavor in every bite. So I decided to translate my favorite potato chip into a hearty snack. Because who doesn’t love another way to make potatoes?

We’re always happy to add to our of growing list of vegan recipes, especially as more people turn to a plant-centered diet. There’s just so much delicious cooking to do with plants! We’re talking beet pesto pasta, chickpea nuggets, and the most delicious broccoli salad with peanut dressing.

These 15 recipes were our favorite vegan recipes in 2016, but we’re sure they’ll live on into 2017 and beyond.

Sometimes you just don’t have the time or budget to get fancy with your food, but that doesn’t mean you can’t eat well (and have some fun, too!). We took several popular snacks and other foods — from corn dogs to broccoli to frozen waffles — and found 10 ways to upgrade them with simple additions and garnishes.

Sorry, I blinked and missed 2016 in that way that happens when you’re so deeply in it, you forget to look up. I went from having one kid and a tiny bundle wrapped in a blanket to have two real-live mobile children and they are impossibly cute and exhausting and I wouldn’t want it any other way except for maybe once a week if we can find a babysitter. Like all parents ever, I think my seven year-old saysamazingthings, such as when he told us this weekend we needed to get our New Year’s Revolutions ready. My 17-month old is a tempest of curls and a blur of frenetic energy and whenever she exhibits, ahem, “low frustration tolerance” people decide this is the perfect time to tell me how much we are alike, not sure what that’s about… Both kids got serious birthdaycakes and for once, my husband did alright too. I got to go on a surprise birthday trip to Mexico City without kids (!) and then we went to Portugal with two children, had a great time, and even remembered to bring the same two children home with us. If we can do that, we can do anything, right?

More relevant to this space, Smitten Kitchen turned 10 years old and I wrote some completely earnest stuff about 10 years of food blogging. I also gave a completely terrifying keynote address at a conference. This site was at last redesigned, the culmination of a multi-year and multi-design team effort to release this site from my circa 2006 attempts at CSS. This was a challenge and a life lesson in accepting that sometimes 95% done, at least for websites is good enough. (That said, we tweak things every week. I expect it to be perfect by 5 years from now, precisely in time for the next redesign.) I finished (well 95% again, but not the kind I’m at peace with because I’m the kind of author that gives publishers ulcers) a cookbook and then I let 13 people with cameras and mics and lights wreck havoc on my apartment one day (more soon on both of these). I hosted my first Thanksgiving and also we started having people over almost every other week because have you ever been at a restaurant with a toddler? Suddenly the idea of cooking even for 11 people on the regular is wildly more appealing. I enjoy the results this has had on my cooking, too, figuring out which meals scale easily, can be prepped in advance and accommodate various diets.